Alabama School for Deaf student from Mobile to give salutatorian address

MOBILE, Alabama -- When Kaneesha Marie Stallworth gives the salutatorian's address at the Alabama School for the Deaf in Talladega on Wednesday, she will speak and sign the words simultaneously.

For the 17-year-old, it offers a way to honor her family in Mobile.

"She wanted to make sure she did it in the mode of communication she grew up with," said Dennis Gilliam, director of high school programs at the Talladega school. "She grew up talking to her mother in sign language. She wanted to sign so her mother could hear what she's saying."

Stallworth's mother is deaf. Her father is not.

And Stallworth herself wrote in an email to the Press-Register that she has known the best of two worlds -- one that is silent, the other hearing.

It was four years ago when she began to notice that she couldn't hear her father's conversations or the television volume wasn't loud enough.

Her dad, she said, thought she was ignoring him. But it was soon evident that her hearing was fading.

She enrolled in the Talladega school in 2009, leaving public school in Mobile.

"My hearing family was very skeptical about me attending a deaf school," wrote Stallworth. "They thought that my education would not be the same."

But, she wrote, she wanted her family to "realize that I will be intelligent and successful no matter what kind of school I attend."

She plans to attend Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., majoring in criminal justice. Her goal is to get a job in the forensic sciences.

"I think it fits me because I'm an obstinate girl, or that's what everyone says," she wrote. "I love challenges, and I like to challenge myself. It's exciting."

Her commencement speech will be about working through the obstacles she faced being deaf.

"Kaneesha Stallworth has grown tremendously in her tenure as an ASD (Alabama School for Deaf) student," said Gilliam. "Kaneesha does not only lead by providing a positive role model for her peers, but she also seeks out opportunities to share her story of maturity and development while attending ASD."

Stallworth said in the email that another obstacle has been missing her family, including her sisters.

The older sibling, she wrote, is her "top inspiration."

She gets home every three to four weeks, she said. "It seems long, but I try my best to keep myself busy so I won't worry about my family," she wrote.

The teen also wrote of the "many misconceptions about the deaf world," something that she and others deal with daily.

"We can learn, drive, eat, and breathe like everyone else," she wrote. "I'm just a normal teenager that's been through a lot of obstacles, just like any other person."

She credited her teachers, along with her own hard work, in her ranking as salutatorian.

"If I were still in public school," she wrote, "I don't believe I would have this opportunity."